For the first time, a former Kentucky basketball player has earned the most prestigious individual honor in the NBA.
On Wednesday night, ex-Cat Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named the 2025 NBA MVP following a standout regular season with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Gilgeous-Alexander is the first former UK basketball player to earn the honor, which has existed since the 1955-56 season.
ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania first reported Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP award win on Wednesday afternoon.
Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, is in the midst of his seventh NBA season and has keyed a deep playoff run for the Thunder, the team with the best NBA regular-season record this season at 68-14. (The NBA MVP award is based on regular-season performance.)
Gilgeous-Alexander excelled during the regular season for Oklahoma City, averaging a league-best 32.7 points per game across 76 games played. This marked Gilgeous-Alexander’s first NBA scoring title. He shot 51.9% from the field and 37.5% from 3-point range on nearly six attempts from deep per game, along with averaging 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks across 34.2 minutes played per contest.
In regular-season play, Gilgeous-Alexander ranked first in scoring, second in field goals made (11.3), fifth in steals and fifth in free-throw shooting (89.8%) in the league. He also had the second-best NBA player efficiency rating during the regular season, behind only Denver’s Nikola Jokic, a three-time league MVP who won the honor in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
During the 2024-25 regular season, Jokic averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game while shooting a career-best 41.7% on 3-pointers for Denver.
On Sunday afternoon, Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder eliminated Jokic’s Denver Nuggets from the playoffs in a seven-game series in the Western Conference semifinals.
Gilgeous-Alexander earned 71 out of a possible 100 first-place votes in the MVP balloting. Jokic received the other 29 first-place votes. Those numbers were reversed when it came to second-place vote totals.
Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder are now just seven postseason wins away from bringing an NBA championship to Oklahoma for the first time. The Thunder lead the Minnesota Timberwolves 1-0 in the Western Conference Finals after advancing past the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round and the Nuggets in the second round.
So far across 12 postseason games in the 2025 playoffs, Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 29.2 points, 6.6 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals while making nearly eight free throws per contest.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who is from Canada, is the seventh straight international winner of the NBA MVP award. The last American player to win the award was James Harden with the Houston Rockets in 2018.
Gilgeous-Alexander is the second Canadian to win NBA MVP honors following Steve Nash, who took home the award in 2005 and 2006.
Three Oklahoma City players — Kevin Durant (2014), Russell Westbrook (2017) and now Gilgeous-Alexander — have won an NBA MVP award in the last 11 years.
During his lone season at Kentucky, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 14.4 points, 5.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.6 steals for John Calipari’s 2017-18 UK team that went 29-11 overall, won the SEC Tournament and reached the Sweet 16 of the national postseason. That was the last time Kentucky won the conference tournament.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who began that season as UK’s backup point guard behind more-celebrated recruit Quade Green, was the 2018 SEC Tournament MVP and was named a second-team All-SEC selection that season, as well as being part of the SEC All-Freshman Team.
Gilgeous-Alexander was selected with the 11th overall pick in the 2018 NBA draft by the Charlotte Hornets, before being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers as part of a draft night deal. He played his rookie season for the Clippers, but was then dealt to the Thunder in July 2019 as part of a trade that saw Paul George go from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles.
Gilgeous-Alexander has spent the rest of his NBA career with Oklahoma City. He’s eligible for a four-year, $294 million super-max contract extension this summer. According to ESPN, this deal would give Gilgeous-Alexander the highest annual contract value ($73.3 million) in NBA history.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s individual star profile has blossomed with the Thunder. He was fifth in MVP voting for the 2022-23 season and second in voting for the award last season.
Despite being a distant second in NBA MVP voting for the 2023-24 season, that represented the highest MVP award voting finish for a former UK player.
In addition to his newfound MVP honor, Gilgeous-Alexander — who has already scored more than 10,000 points in the NBA — is a three-time NBA All-Star and a two-time starter for that showcase. He’s also a two-time All-NBA First Team selection. He will also earn a third All-NBA First Team honor when those selections are revealed for this season.
Earlier this year, Gilgeous-Alexander was one of two ex-Cats (along with New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns) to start the All-Star Game. SGA led all Western Conference backcourt players in fan voting for this year’s All-Star contest. This marked only the third time that two former UK players were voted in as starters for the same All-Star Game.
Should Gilgeous-Alexander and Oklahoma City go on to dispatch Minnesota, then the Thunder would make the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012, which is the franchise’s only trip that far in the playoffs since relocating from Seattle in 2008.
Gilgeous-Alexander is teammates on the Thunder with fellow ex-Cat Cason Wallace, who is currently in his second professional season after being a lottery pick in the 2023 NBA draft.
Wallace — who emerged as a starter for OKC this season — averaged 8.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.8 steals in 27.6 minutes across 68 games (43 starts) for the Thunder during the 2024-25 regular season.
This built upon a rookie season that saw Wallace play in all 82 regular-season games for Oklahoma City during the 2023-24 campaign with averages of 6.8 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 20.6 minutes. Wallace was an All-Rookie Second Team selection during the 2023-24 season.
Wallace spent the 2022-23 season at UK. In 32 games (all starts) for the Wildcats, he boasted per-game averages of 11.7 points, 4.3 assists and 2.0 steals while shooting 34.6% from 3-point range and 44.6% from the field. That UK team, Calipari’s penultimate squad at Kentucky, went 22-12 overall and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
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This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 7:10 PM.